The role of the EDC is to help shape the future of healthcare from an equality, diversity and human rights perspective, and to improve the quality of care for all. In the first of series of blogs, co-chair of the Equality and Diversity Council (EDC), Joan Saddler provides an update from the most recent quarterly meeting and offers an insight into the latest thinking behind the programme of work.

Three in five of us will be carers at some point in our lives and for many of us these responsibilities will begin or continue into our older age. Dawn Moody, Associate National Clinical Director for Older People, marks Older Peoples Day (1 October) with a blog on the importance of caring for our carers.

The type of intense extra workload pressure often experienced by the NHS in winter has become a year long experience, say experts responding to the publication of the latest official data on the performance of the NHS in England.

NHS England’s combined performance summary data show an NHS that is missing many of its targets and hitting new record lows for performance in some areas.

NHS England has announced a range of improvements to its GP retainer scheme, including increased funding for GPs and practices. The scheme provides financial incentives and development support to encourage GPs who might otherwise leave the profession to remain in general practice.

NHS England said that, from 1 July 2016, it would increase the money for practices employing a retained GP and the annual payment towards professional expenses for GPs in the scheme.

The USA and England have joined forces on two films for healthcare professionals to show how they are reducing the combined 90million people living in their countries collectively who are on-track to develop Type 2 diabetes.

Top experts from both sides of the Atlantic shared tactics to reduce the 86 million Americans and 5million people in England at increased risk of developing the disease which can cause blindness and amputation.

More people than ever are receiving psychological therapies and April saw the highest recovery rates so far in the history of the programme, end of year data has shown.

The number of people referred for treatment from January to March (Q4) increased to 367,689 by around 17,000 from 350,505 in Q3. The 15 per cent access target was exceeded hitting a new high of 16.8 per cent.

Medicare, the US insurance program for elderly people and people with disabilities, announced plans on 23 March to cover diabetes prevention programs that focus on lifestyle counseling, after an independent evaluation found that a pilot program had successfully reduced participants’ risk of developing type 2 diabetes while creating savings that more than covered the program’s cost.

Earlier this week, NHS Englandannounced that it was launching a national lifestyle education program to reduce the risk of diabetes, with a similar approach to that taken in the US. The initiative, called the Healthier You: the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme, will begin this year and will eventually enroll 100 000 participants a year by 2020.

The first national whistleblowing policy for the NHS aims to encourage doctors and other NHS employees in England to report bullying, threats to the safety of patients, and other harmful practices in their organisation, without blighting their careers in the process.

The draft policy, drawn up by Monitor, the NHS Development Authority, and NHS England, will be open to consultation for eight weeks from 16 November. NHS organisations, patients, and staff are invited to comment, in confidence if they wish.

Acute hospitals, mental health services, community trusts, ambulance services and primary care organisations report incidents to the NRLS where any patient could have been harmed or has suffered any level of harm. The reporting of incidents to a national central system helps protect patients from avoidable harm by increasing opportunities to learn from mistakes and where things go wrong.

The latest NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare has just been published, with 102 maps detailing widespread variation in the quality, cost, activity and health outcome of healthcare in the English NHS. The indicators focus on a variety of services.

The Atlas is a collaboration with NHS England, Public Health England and NHS Right Care and can be accessed here(Previous versions of the atlas are also available online.)

Recently highlighted in the media, information about the Atlas and its themes can be found here

You can read the recent Public Health England Press Release about the atlas here
The NHS Confederation also commented (see link) on the usefulness of the Atlas which provides intelligence and highlights variations in care across regions.

A Patient Safety Alert has been issued by NHS England to launch an NHS-wide programme of work based around the National Safety Standards for Invasive Procedures (NatSSIPs) that were published on 7 September 2015.

The alert asks NHS providers to review current clinical practice and ensure the NatSSIPs are embedded into local processes by developing their own local safety standards for invasive procedures (LocSSIPs) in collaboration with staff, patients and the public.

“The current national and international focus on dementia has been widely welcomed as a vehicle to raise the profile of, and attract attention to, what has been a hitherto relatively neglected area of scientific interest and clinical practice…

…The news a few weeks ago of the putative efficacy of a disease modifying treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has ignited widespread public, professional and political interest and enthusiasm…”

Simon Stevens today announced a major drive to improve and support the health and wellbeing of 1.3million health service staff.

Speaking to a packed hall at the at the Health and Innovation Expo 2015 conference in Manchester, the NHS England Chief Executive set out how NHS organisations will be supported to help their staff stay well.

The NHS plans to launch a new national occupational health service from next April to support general practitioners experiencing burnout and stress.

A national service specification based on successful local programmes will form part of a wider, major new drive from NHS England to improve the health and wellbeing of NHS staff. The scheme will include serving healthier food, offering health checks in the workplace, and promoting physical activity among staff.

The NHS Friends and Family Test (FFT) has reached a memorable milestone today by achieving its ten millionth piece of feedback from patients.

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Launched in April 2013 and now fully rolled out across the NHS, the FFT has allowed millions of patients to give invaluable feedback on their experiences of care and treatment in services throughout the NHS.

As one of the New Models of Care Vanguards – Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group – is tackling social isolation. In the latest of a series of blogs on the vanguards, the Chief Executive of Age UK Wakefield District, explains their role and their commitment to making a difference for older people through their ‘Pull up a Chair’ campaign.

NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens and the NHS Five Year Forward View partners announced on Friday eight new vanguards that will launch the transformation of urgent and emergency care for more than nine million people.

This comes as NHS England also revealed the success of Regional Major Trauma Networks which, after they were set up just three years ago, have seen a remarkable 50 percent increase in the odds of survival for trauma patients revealed in a new independent audit by the Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN)

Poor leadership among senior medical staff and hospital management was at the heart of recent failings in the NHS in England and Scotland, says a report from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges in Scotland.

A working group looked at a series of recent reports into failings at hospitals, including Staffordshire Hospital and the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Its report said that the problems were predominantly caused by the failure of senior clinical staff and NHS management to work together.

NHS England’s Medical Director Sir Bruce Keogh will today (Monday 6 July) announce the successful applicants of a scheme to make evidenced healthcare innovations more widely available to patients.

Seventeen healthcare pioneers from the UK and abroad have been identified to receive national support to roll out their technologies, processes and models of care to patients, hospitals and GP practices throughout England.

As leaders from the nine Integrated Personal Commissioning demonstrator sites met on the 9th of June to share early learning, Dr Linda Collie, Clinical Executive at NHS Portsmouth CCG, explains how working together with Portsmouth City Council and Age UK Portsmouth is enabling older people with complex health needs to become the real experts in their own care.